Cuthand: Adler’s Senate selection chance for reconciliation

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Pity poor Charles Adler, a Manitoba columnist and commentator who was recently appointed to the Senate. His appointment has raised the ire of both the Conservatives and the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. It’s not often that two disparate groups agree on the same thing.

The assembly has expressed its displeasure and asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the governor general to rescind the appointment.

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The dispute goes back 25 years to when Adler commented on radio, calling Indigenous leaders “boneheads and intellectually moribund,” among other things. At the time, the Manitoba chiefs filed a complaint with the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.

The council investigated and concluded that Adler’s remarks fell in the category of “fair comment.”

“Those who occupy positions of power on the reserves may legitimately be described, on account of the decisions which they make, as ‘boneheads’ or ‘intellectually moribund’ by opinion-holders in the media,” the council stated in 2000.

It concluded that the remarks were not directed at a race of people, but at some of the leadership. If you take it in that context and look at a provincial legislature or the parliament of Canada, you will see a group that extends from hardworking and dedicated members to boneheads and everything in between.

They say that political jokes aren’t always funny because they tend to get elected.

On the other hand, the Conservative Party has criticized Adler’s appointment as partisan. Adler was a conservative commentator throughout his career, but he split with the conservatives over Harper’s mean-spirited “barbaric cultural practices hotline” where people could rat out their neighbours for wearing a hijab or any other suspicious behaviour.

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On CBC, Adler stated that he didn’t leave the Conservative Party — it left him.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has stated very naively that the main cause of terrorism is terrorists, so I doubt if he can count on Adler’s support.

Regardless, the governor general doesn’t have the authority to rescind the Adler appointment as the Manitoba chiefs have suggested. She is a figurehead and in a constitutional monarchy she has no political power. It’s unfair to ask her to do something that is impossible.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on the other hand, could do it; but will he? You know what they call someone who takes something back?

But people change, and it’s been 25 years since Adler’s offensive comments, and a lot of water has gone under the bridge. Did the Manitoba chiefs contact him before requesting his removal?

Adler has stated that he has requested a face-to-face meeting with Manitoba Grand Chief Cathy Merrick and other leaders, and he is waiting for a reply.

We have a history of settler domination and a large part of it has been to inflict an inferiority complex on our people. Residential school staff called us stupid, useless and filthy and treated us as such.

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Our leaders had to deal with arrogant government officials who placed our people in a position of inferiority. This is what Adler needs to hear. We have been put down all our lives and we’re sick of it.

This is an excellent opportunity to see reconciliation in action. If the two can make amends, the chiefs could have a valuable ally in the Senate.

The role of a columnist or commentator is to make people think about the events of the day. Calling chiefs boneheads may not have been a good example, but I’m sure that he was not the first to insult a person who holds elected office.

Daily, we see some columnist or another holding elected officials to account; it’s just a part of the democratic process.

The trick is to stick to policy and not go after an individual on a personal level. You don’t call them names, insult their families or make comments about their physical shape. That’s irrelevant to the point you are trying to make.

In the last 25 years, we have seen a lot of change. Young, dynamic leaders have emerged in Indian Country who are making changes in the social and economic lives of our people.

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The need to move forward is greater than ever, and dredging up the past only gets in the way.

Doug Cuthand is the Indigenous affairs columnist for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and the Regina Leader-Post. He is a member of the Little Pine First Nation.

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